Jane Austen Meets Ecuador

It was a scene worthy for Ms. Bennett, Ms. Dashwood or even Ms. Woodhouse -the female characters from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Emma:

A picturesque house with hymnals, lace tablecloths, china on the walls, teacups decorating the tables and bookshelves and the smell of fresh homemade soup and bread.

An inviting field in the backyard speckled with wild flowers and a lone tree casting its shadow waiting for company.

A picnic menu of mangos, papayas, apples, oranges and tree tomatoes and a side of a perfect blue sky.

...Ok enough of my cheesiness...

But last week the girls had a great day at Sandi's truly cozy house. It began with an old school photo shoot out back to get pictures for her new cooking blog. The theme was a classic, vintage look. It was fun to dress up and go outside for a quick/fake picnic. Then we starting our cooking lesson- Sandi is an AMAZING cook and is kind enough to bestow her gifts to us young girls. The majority of us haven't had to cook on our own since we ate at saga (Wheaton's nationally top ranked cafeteria). But now with the fact of cooking for the rest of our lives in front of us- we are more than excited to learn from Sandi! We made homemade sourdough breadsticks, chicken tortilla soup and homemade citrus marmalade (as just an extra thing to learn, it didn't go with our meal). The food was delicious and was shared as lunch for our women's bible study :)

Hopefully in the future we will have more cooking dates and picnics!

Nail crosses made from the original nails of the Nate Saint House

yummy :)

Part of the ingredients for the citrus marmalade- with all that peel it's really tart! But Amie likes it :)